Life
by Halewyn's Lady
Summary: for the 2018 august challenge by that name. Dabbles in both Merlin mini series.
1. Life

The essence to Merlin's Apprentice: Merlin thinks he was very drunk once….

This is a record of that time, relocated to a bar, in present time.

Let me misquote: "Oh, they hurt. Memories of alcohol, they hurt.

Well, nothing can be done about that now. The arrow of time points in one direction."

Lady/Merlin ahead, dive in at own risk.

/

He recognized her at once. She had changed her hair, she had been changing much about herself recently.

She was the very person he wanted to see most and the last person he wanted to see. With the obvious exception of his mother. He would pick dying over facing mother right now.

He had dropped out of college. He would fail his studies. The woman sitting there was his benefactor, in a way. She had encouraged him to pursue his studies, his love, everything, life. She gave him fundings and lavish gifts. He needed her advice desperately, like air to keep from suffocating. Sometimes he imagined she lived through him. Her own life always sounded empty to him.

He watched the black boots she wore, high-heeled, uncommon for her. She often went out the door forgetting to put shoes on. She wasn't even wearing those sparkly white fingerless gloves she was so fond of.

How many pairs of those had she owned? Were they all worn down?

She sat exactly where he used to sit. Beer at hand and study book in front of him. This bar drew people, interesting people, and it breathed out atmosphere and a poet's inspiration. Not that he was a poet, but he liked the taste of poetry. Nimue did too, before she dumped him.

He was lazy and never around when she needed him. He understood. It was true. How would he break this to his aunt?

Telling her was almost equal to telling his mother. They were best friends, in an incomprehensible near-hostile way. They resembled each other, called each other sister too. Now that her hair was black as well, the ghostlike presence of his mother grew all the stronger. No, these thick tresses shone and waved. Her hair wasn't like his mom's at all. She was not. Her voice was entirely different and her personality even more so. He could count on her understanding.

His mother will be furious when she finds out he didn't finish his studies. She was paying for his boarding. She would skin him. He would be lucky to get away only missing his skin.

"Viviane, what brings you here?" He should not have asked that. He could bite his tongue for this. She did not look as though she had come looking for him. She was only a woman having a drink. Her eyes on the Celtic swirls decorating the wall. He could almost hear her wish for a folk tune to play. Maybe later it would. The bar tender had a tickle taste in music.

"Merlin," He could have sworn her cheeks flushed. "dear student boy." She looked almost scared, as if not he, but his mother had discovered her here. Was she here in the hopes of picking someone up? His mother would disapprove, but then, she disapproved of most things.

"Please call me Vivi, Viviane makes me feel old."

"Don't be silly. You are young."

"It is different for women. You'll learn." She paused wistfully. "You cut your hair." She smiled, firmly holding her glass, droplets condense tricked down over her fingers.

"My student days are over." His voice of inevitable doom and death.

Their family always was one for being dramatic. "Tell me more."

"I would have called…" It's been days, weeks, since he attended lessons.

"Sit down and tell me now. I won't judge."

"I know." She tilted her head.

"You are worried about your mother."

"Yes."

"She'll hate you for this."

"I know." He looked defeated. "I am making a living, a future for myself. I am developing a freelance project. We call it Camelot."

"We?"

"Myself and a group of friends. Arthur does most of the work, under my supervision. I am his mentor."

"How old is Arthur that you can be his mentor?"

A pause. "He's not left high school yet, but he'll do great things, I know it. He is just what the world needs."

His hand gestures were all over the place, indicating to her that he too probably already had something to drink before entering this lowly drinking cavern. She allowed herself a deep drink, downing her glass in one swoop, thinking she needed it.

"Are you for drinking?"

"Excuse me?"

He reached to scratch the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Err sorry, I meant can I buy you a drink? What would you like?"

"That is very kind of you."

"I've only ever seen you drink water."

"Could have been vodka."

"It wasn't. I know you, Vivia... Vivi."

Her empty glass had most certainly not contained anything close to water. So there were more sides to her than he knew of. That is what makes life interesting.

"This is my usual dwelling." It felt like him, a stretch of forest in a crowded world.

"Is it? I liked the sign outside, before you walk down the stairs.." into the filth, into the cool cavernous space that is this bar. "The sword."

He knew her to be superstitious. She believed in signs. A sword must mean something specific to her. She let her private symbolism guide her.

"Yes. This place is called Excalibar. It's a pun… it's…"

"silly."

"Yeah.

There was supposedly this woman in a lake and she handed a man a sword, to make him king, I think."

"I know the story."

"I wish I were a better storyteller."

He was still not sitting down. And he was beginning to explain to her the best known legend in the world out of sheer despair, but it all sounded too adorable for her to be annoyed.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"You couldn't." Hell, she could. He had never seen her like this before. He only ever saw her in soft colours, in the cold light of his family home, her pastel shaded make-up, light pink lips now a deep red. He involuntarily felt his knees weaken when she smiled. He gripped the chair, for his dear life, and sat down.

"I like your other style better. It is more… you." His hands fidgeting in his lap, like that nervous nerdie Frik.

"Oh." For a moment she looked as though she would take her napkin and wipe the red from her lips. She then, decidedly, did not.

The smoky shadows of the bar enveloped her, they hid her face almost as well as her hair did.

He reached out, brushed the hair away. He was fed up with women hiding, he got enough of that with Nimue. She shivered. He did not understand.

"Merlin, you shouldn't…" Her voice hoarse, not as light and luminescent as he was used to. Its counseling streak was also gone. He had caught her here, what he had considered to be strange waters to her. Evidently he'd been wrong. He never was a good judge of people.

"Is Nimue… well?"

His girlfriend's confidence had never recovered from meeting his mother. Merlin had known she would not approve. Nimue took it personal. Viviane had borne witness to all her sister's complaints, irks and grievances about the girl.

"She is gone."

"I am sorry." Viviane placed her hand on his. It was peculiar in the sense that he had never noticed how often she shied away from physical contact until now when she did touch him. His entire family was not of the huggy kind.

"I… another drink." She agreed.

He was on his seventh glass, - somehow the glasses hadn't gone up even. It was only her fifth. – when she kissed him.

She did not become embarrassed. Had he expected her to? Girls often did.

He was easily led when drunk. She almost enjoyed having this power over him.

As sweat dripped slowly from the ceiling of the bar and the air inside had grown sharp drowning in muddled liquored breaths, she decided it was time to leave.

He was hopeless when it came to directions. They did find his rooms, in the end. Long after she had taken off her shoes, which had become painful to her feet, and after that street where he stopped every few paces to kiss her as though his life depended on her alone. "Aren't you too drunk?" she whispered. "No." he called. "No!" resting his head against a cool surface. "I am too drunk, but not too drunk to adore you. Look at this lamppost, it's beautiful. And. So. Are. You."

"Hey lady!" Another drunken voice. "Is that guy bothering you?"

"Mind your own business." she called back.

His rooms were a second kind of cave. She put on the lights, clear white ones. She stripped to her underwear. He could barely get out of his clothes, she stopped helping him, they had taken enough off for him to be serviceable to her and at least he was enthusiastic, if not very mobile. She lay him on the bed. She freely enjoyed what happened there, taking her desires.

When he woke, she had left. There was a blasting headache in her place and precious little recollection of the previous night.

A week or two later, in which time he met up with his friends and continued building up Camelot, his memory was jolted into action. There was a text.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes, cooped up in my student room." Where you left me…

He only went home on weekends. He was staying here for as long as he could to avoid his mother's wrath. He had officially quit, she knew, and somehow his skin was still intact.

"Do not tell your mother."

"Wasn't planning to."

She sounded secretive, as ever. But then one had to be when acquainted with his mother who was known for her temper. She smashed any objects to the floor. You didn't want her to repeat last year's fatal phone crash, which had occurred upon receiving a text she hadn't liked, not on her own phone. That "swine Vortigern" offering to pay her for a lap dance. Merlin still missed that phone.

"I am pregnant."

"Are you… keeping it?"

"Yes. Do not tell your mother it is yours."

It is mine? His head pounded all of a sudden. That is impossible.

"Will I have to… marry you?"

"No, Merlin." Such a boy still.

"Will I see you again?"

/

-Meet me at the lake.-

Creating a child had been her purpose to going out in the first place. The much needed change to her existence.

He did not need to know that.

All she had needed was a sword.


	2. Lies

Oh yes, there is a sequel. I am calling it Life 2, Life's Apprentice, horrid title isn't it? I am submitting this for next month's challenge Lies.

We will begin with a Merlin's Apprentice quote from Merlin himself:

"Still you have an advantage, you have me." cue hopeless smile.

/

As soon as Mab opened the door to her friend, she noticed.

"By all that is purple!" She liked purple: clothes, prose, every single wall in the house.

"WHY?" One word, the most exasperated sound. "How can you be so stupid?" The word stupid also took on a typical her-inflection. She let the pregnant lady in. Merlin hadn't expected her to. His mother didn't take change well. In most cases she would have closed the door and rescheduled for when it suited her better.

Merlin was confined to the next room, his private 'chambers', a bedroom and study. Both lorded over by his mother. As everything in this house. They were of her design and clearly reflected her aspirations for him. He longed back for his student lodgings.

Viviane had come to inform his mother. This was too soon for Merlin. He believed himself unfortunate to be stuck at home and have to hear this conversation.

He imagined the soft curve to Viviane's stomach. Her pregnancy was not showing all that clearly yet. Merlin knew what that curve looked like in her flesh. It was beautiful.

He heard his mother opening the cupboard. She was either coming to terms with the idea of her friend's pregnancy or opting to ignore it all together in the future. His mother selected extra packs of biscuits while she pondered her dilemma over. Merlin emerged to take a few for his own. Viviane was sitting down. The white gloves were back. Nervous, in her lap. She did not look up.

By the care his mother took in displaying the biscuits, Merlin could tell Mab was trying to act compassionate towards her friend. He took a handful of chocolate covered biscuits and went back to his room.

It was just two friends together now.

"Well," Mab breathed, placing her tea cup down "sister", a sneer. "You hated it when I was expecting a child, so in all fairness I should serve you as you did me all those years ago by not talking with you for years..." A self-satisfied smirk.

"Your situation was different from mine. "

"I don't see how."

"You don't even like men. You convinced your then-girlfriend to bear a child for you."

It was not even going to be the girlfriend's own child. The egg had been Mab's. Mab had called it magic.

Her egg and the semen she picked from an anonymous donor, the father might as well not exist.

Merlin cringed, he hated this story. Most of his fights with his mother centered around this topic, and most of his talks with Viviane too.

Viviane had disapproved of the plan as soon as she heard. She doubted Mab told anyone else.

It was not legal.

Not illegal either, as Mab frequently pointed out.

She did not know Mab had worked it. To get everyone at the hospitable so crazy to follow her madness. Of course by then Mab no longer kept her informed of the proceedings. Her sister was secretive by nature. Viviane could only assume there had been endless screenings, tests for Mab and her girlfriend to partake in to get their request approved medically, psychologically, ethically,… . She wondered if Mab ever tried herself to carry a child, implanted or otherwise. Logically if it had been possible for Mab to have a child herself her carrier-mother plan would have been denied. Viviane could only assume there was something wrong with her friend's womb. Viviane regretted she had left their friendship adrift back then and Mab had never truly forgiven her for her disapproval.

"And then you dumped her, as you had calculated all along."

"I fail to see my 'fault'."

"You ruined her."

"Oh yes why don't you blame me for the umptieth time, it's all you and Merlin ever do. "

And Merlin, his mother did not know how he worried about his conception, the self-hatred he carried.

Viviane had to breathe, keep her criticism in.

This was her best friend. A best friend who made friendship inhumanly difficult.

She did not want to fall out with her friend all over again.

Mab had had her child. Whoever got hurt, she had gotten exactly what she wanted. Viviane's heart sank. She was going down the same path. She prayed she would not mess up motherhood quite as badly as she believed her best friend to have done.

Once Viviane said to her sister: 'You are the one who drove made your girlfriend mad.' She would not say so again. It just slipped out, quite intentionally, in anger, once. It had ended with Merlin crying in the basement and Viviane sitting by him for hours. No lights there, but for the faint glow of her white dress.

To reconcile that Merlin with how she knew him was surprisingly easy.

"Who," Mab nudged her head in Viviane's direction with obvious discomfort. "is the father?

"Just someone I met."

"With a penis, disgusting." She bit her biscuit. "That really narrows it down.

Married?"

"I believe so. It was a one night thing."

"At least there is that. You don't want some the father meddling in this. "

Mab threw a pack of biscuits at Merlin. He had been dwelling in the room again, overstaying his welcome in his mother's opinion. "Here, these are yours, now stay out." Typical.

Lady started, "Is… he…"

"Majorly depressed about having lost the war that is higher education and moping about endlessly, yes, urrg I don't know what is up with that boy, there is always something. He never focuses on what he should. First in pink fluffy spheres over Niiiiimueeee, now over some sprite named Arthur, I mean honestly, has he inherited none of my taste?

My words are but air to him, particularly when I talk about the future, life decisions, all that fun stuff. He shuts me out. He listens to you, heck, he'd follow you blindly… The boy idolizes you. You should talk to him."

Merlin's mother shrugged when Vivi didn't answer.

Viviane could entreat entry to his chambers later, he would let her in. Mab would tell her roughly what to say. He would hear her advice and express no questions to her integrity, no hesitations, he would trust Viviane instantly and always, as he always did.

Her sister usually offered to help right away. She did not seem up to it now. She had problems of her own.

"It's early, you could still lose it."

"I am hoping I won't."

"Oh you have the ambition of a cuttlefish!" Nonsensical comparisons were his mother's thing. It was best not to dwell on them. He imagined the look on Vivi's face had either gone very dark or very unexpressive.

"You are envious because I know what I want and you never do. Only now it occurs to you that hey, you wanted a child all along. Try to think big, for once in your life, …" She cast a meaningful look.

What did she want?

"…get the father to pay his share."

"Look, I doubt he remembers. "

His mother leeringly leaned forward, and corrected her in a sharp whisper. "No, you don't want to tax him."

"It is MY child, not his.

I'd prefer him not to know. If I could keep it a secret forever I would."

"So you did tell him?"

"I texted him."

"Great gods, Vivi! You don't text something like that. "

"It seemed the best way." The least intrusive way.

She shouldn't have told him, she hadn't planned to and suddenly phone in her hand, there it had been: text and sent.

She had had to tell him because he knew her, he would see her, he would notice and grow concerned. He would already have barged into this room if she hadn't.

"What did he say. Well?"

"Nothing, really."

They met up by the lake and in her flat. She had asked him to be there. They had kissed, talked, slept together. A couple of times. They had shared a bath. Merlin had attempted to broach the topic of her pregnancy on several occasions, she had turned away. Once had been during that bath, his arms resting on her abdomen as he held her. Solemnly he declared "He is conceived." She plashed him with water. When she was drying herself off, he handed her a towel and dried her hair for her. "See, you need me."

"I need you? How do I need you?"

She turned around, hesitantly, he held her in his arms again. "You need me, to take care of this child.

I would be a good father." She walked away, she did not speak or say 'no' or shake her head. She might as well have given him his death warrant.

"Thank you." she had said, softly, from the bedroom.

There had been a dark ghost to her voice from then on whenever she spoke to him. He did not like hearing her tainted by this remorse-like echo.

Mab tutted. "Do you have to be so withdrawn and polite? You are too kind, it just isn't healthy."

He kicked the wall to his rooms. He thought of that time, overpowered again, by the wish of running away, getting out. His most hopeful memory. That time when he fled down to the sparkly cellar and she had come to comfort him. He had never minded letting her see him when he felt him defeated. She always helped him.

It was the time Viviane first mentioned his birthmother and her mental state. She had partly blamed Mab. Merlin had sworn revenge on his mother. He had said he would run away from home. He told her then of his escape plan. She had been included in his plan. Everyone he cared about had a place in his plot. How foolish those plans were. The unhappy child who wanted to run away. Vivi had stayed and sat with him. She hadn't objected or rationalized his plans. She listened to them all.

Then she suggested something better, he should look for the woman who carried him all those years ago.

Viviane helped him find his birthmother.

In this moment in his room he sensed the same disillusion with the world as he had felt then. He realized he still intended to run away. 'I'll leave home', the mature expression for it. He wanted to do so now, run away in secret with her.

"Vivi, Vivi, wait!" Merlin burst out of his room.

"I am going to visit my birthmother, can you give me a lift?"

She did not reply, she held the door open for him to exit first. He dashed past his mother hastily pressing a kiss to Mab's cheek. That was uncommon.

He did not start babbling forth all his woes to Viviane at once. Another oddity.

His mother had expected him to ask to talk with her alone in the solitude of his hut.

She wondered if her sister had, if but slightly, lost her idol status. She had been knocked off her pedestal. By what? The only thing that had changed was the pregnancy. It seemed unlike Merlin to judge her for that. But then he could be, very, judgy.

He walked silent, in an eager sort of pace. So her glow had not dimmed to him after all. He looked slightly off, how he leaned to Viviane and carefully kept his distance too, an awkward puppy to her heels.

A hissing dread came upon Mab, followed directly by a resolute "NO."

/

Vivi dropped him off at his mother's house. She was not going with him, she had groceries to do and would come back to pick him up. Before Merlin got out of the car he leaned over and kissed her. A distracted silent look came over her. It held we-will-talk-about-this-later-implications. It was a guilty look. He had seen that look only once before. Late at night in her flat, when she had been half asleep against him, right after she had told him that she cared for no one as deeply as him.

Now she said slowly, soft and deliberate. " You can't really… do that." She could not force herself to speak any faster, not with subjects that really matter to her. It was impossible for her. She needed to weigh words.

If she was going to patiently explain her behaviour to him later, he did not want her to. He got out of the car and ran to his mother's house.

Ambrosia answered the door.

She was his mother's nurse. She had known him since he had found his birthmother. She had known his other mother and her sister that long too. Ambrosia was in many ways more a mother to him than either of his mothers. He thought Ambrosia would understand.

Mab's ex was of a fragile heart and mind. She was often unavailable to him. This time too, Ambrosia informed him of the new medication that his birthmother had to get used to. It made her sleep for most of the day. It would be best not to disturb her.

"Ambrosia, I am in love!" declared Merlin.

"I remember the last time you said that." She provided him with an insincere warning look.

"It is different from last time. I saw her at my bar and we talked and we went to the lake together and her thighs… have I told you about…"

"No, you haven't and I don't need you to. I don't need to know about any lady's thighs. But I am very happy for you. Help me change the sheets." He enjoyed helping the full-time nurse out with household chores.

"And other news. Viviane's pregnant. She gave me a lift."

She liked Viviane, Viviane had helped her out during breakdowns, of both his mothers. Ambrosia had once commented that Vivi had the patience an angel. Which to her knowledge was as useful a thing as it was harmful.

Merlin looked at her for a while, not moving.

"Oh Merlin, her?"

He smiled, then his smile fell when she did react quite as he had hoped.

"Viviane has never committed to anything in her life. She is half out there living in another world. She can't keep a job and she can't keep an aquarium."

They all knew Viviane was caught in an eternal struggle to keep her fish alive.

She forgets to clean the aquarium. He had seen her calendar. The days she had to do that chore were marked in thick red marker visualizing the urgency of a battle to be fought.

Then I'll take care of the fish, Merlin thought, viciously. I will clean her aquarium. He swore to it.

"My mother wasn't thrilled either. About the pregnancy, we haven't told her more."

"You'll want to keep that pain-in-the-back far away from it.

Dear boy, I love Vivi dearly. I hold her in far higher regard than …" the horror… it was coming… his mother… Mab again." I hate to agree with Mab but she'd make a neglectful parent."

"You think it is that bad?"

"Well, yes."

His eyes welled up.

He sobbed suddenly. Ambrosia hugged him. "It is not going to be a complete disaster. If you can keep mom at bay.

It is just that… Vivi likes to be alone, prefers to be alone. I think. She want to be free to read her esoteric magazines or whatever it is she does, unashamed and in peace.

She wants you to make something of your life, for yourself. She is a grown woman, she must take care of her own life and you must take care of yours. Of course she makes mistakes too, everyone does."

"I am not a mistake, that night wasn't a mistake."

"No, you aren't but you are precious. We all want what is best for you."

"I really like her… we were friends …"

"It is not just about your feelings. Please reconsider, Merlin.

Love is fleeting, it's okay. That is just how life is. Emotions are fluid." She looked at him, with her concerned wise eyes.

"Has she told you she loves you?"

"Well no, not in so many words, but close to it. She is just being careful."

"Life's not made to be lived halfheartedly. If she quiets her feelings down there must be a reason. One that can't bode well for you."

"What if you are right? Then what?"

"About what?"

"If she can't raise a child?"

"Have it up for adoption.

"I won't accept that."

"There is nothing you can do, not yet.

I'll just say, I'd be surprise if she succeeds in keeping it until it is out of diapers.

Don't look so glum. It is her child. Not yours. Remember that. It will help you through this."

But it is mine. His mind kept repeating and he couldn't turn it off.

When Viviane arrived, she remained standing next to her car. As if not to disturb her surroundings too much. She called from afar, offering a polite hallo to Ambrosia.

A silver car and a matching dress, so they would not clash. She would neverever quite realise silvers and whites do stand out. Merlin got in car and Ambrosia waved him goodbye.

Viviane's rueful eyes were shrouded in mist on the drive back. He tried to talk with her, but she had distanced herself. It felt as if she existed behind glass. He could not reach.

Not until she reached out first, a few words, no words came, a hand then, when she had parked the car, one faintly gloved hand rested between them which he took and held with as much love as he could.

She did not expand upon that hand, it drew away again, she retreated completely under the icy surface. His chance closed before his eyes. Her ice now solid as a mountain, it was no use pounding upon her walls. He got out of the car. Without a kiss.

/

The party to launch Camelot was there before he truly noticed.

There had been no sign from Viviane in the days preceding it.

Yet she was there. From the audience she looked at him, tender, proud and shining, exactly as before, when they hadn't been… lovers, enemies? When they had guided and admired each other. She was silent, as she had always been, his supportive semi-aunt.

If she did not wish to meet again, he was fairly certain by now she did not, he would respect her wishes. If she did not want him in her life, not like that, he would respect her wishes too. If she was letting him go out to live his life, he would respect her wishes, and be hopelessly lost.

When his project presentation was over he looked for her. Some fancy struck him that she would affectionately stoke his hair back when congratulating him. She only offered him words. Fairly standard ones. Standing beside him, not touching. She did not feel the inclination to.

He glossed over the tranquil pastel colours she wore, her make-up a matching soft pastel with faint traces of glitter on her cheeks. This style of make-up often matched Mab's. It was a best friends thing.

He did not offer her a kiss. She would not want one. There was nothing dubious between them. Apart from the child, between them, within her. She moved to walk away.

Then his mother arrived, in the tumult of the after party. Fashionably late she crashed in as a lightning strike and handed him a small gift. She had a knack for destructive presents. He knew it couldn't possibly be something nice.

He unwrapped the package anyway. A box of condoms.

When he looked up, far too accustomed to his mother's antics to provide her with much of a reaction, she had already intercepted Viviane, gotten a hold of her, pulling her swiftly away.

He could not get himself to say a word, to voice some warning, to take a step in their wake, Vivi looked in his direction, then cast her eyes down immediately as Mab spoke.

"How ingenious of you to combine this with the baby shower," he overheard his mother comment to her. "you couldn't let such an opportunity go." He could not catch the rest. The sisters walked out of his view.

He continued to linger in the company of friends. Out of nowhere his mother reappeared and planted herself firmly in front of him. "I know you like her, " she mockingly tilted her head. " and she is my best friend, but whatever do you see in her? I mean… she is such a wet blanket. But then you like that don't you?

Anyway, there is someone …" She peered, plucked an unfortunate out of the crowd and put this person by her side. "ah here is my date." She locked arms with Nimue. Nimue stood proud. She looked unscarred by past insecurities. Ironically healed, somehow, by his mother? From wounds brought on by Mab in the first place!

"You steal my friend, I steal yours."

"You were never a couple with Vivi."

"Says who? Sanctimonious Viv? Don't you know her by now?"

Merlin was going to be sick. She could not be serious.

"Always omitting, masking, painting facts as vaguely as possible. It is her to the T. She is transparent as water and never clear at all. Her psyche are the murkiest waters. Have you ever tried getting directions from her? It's like something out of a fairy story. 'Oh you failed to recognize what I described as a 'luminescent sun' for a tacky bright red fast-food billboard and missed your turn because of this unintentional misdirection? I feel sad for you.' Viviane." Best friends, how on earth were these women best friends? "But yes, Merlin, before you even entered the picture …"

He was going to be sick.

"there was much loveliness going on….between us …"

He was going to be tremendously sick in a discreet place. A mere minute from now.

As he gazed upon his mother's triumphant smile, Merlin's common sense kicked in.

"You lie." It sounded loud and clear within his mind. "You're a liar."

"Well, it was gorgeous. Then Vivi had to go and believe she was straight all of a sudden. She is always trying so very hard to be dull, isn't she?"

"You are still lying."

"Maybe, Merlin, maybe. It was worth a shot. The point is…"

"Oh is there a point?"

"You are my son and while she may not have been interested in me, loo and behold what happens when I have a son…"

"We are nothing alike."

Mab shrugged. She was allowed to make things up for her son's your wellbeing. "I was doing you a favour."

Satisfied as can be she continued "Imagine how embarrassing would it be if we had dated."

"You scared the shit out of me."

He spent the rest of his great evening hating his mother. He should have guessed he would. It is how most meaningful events played out for him. Mab, my mother, he saw her talking with other people, she asked in that tone of voice that could carry to the furthest reaches of the room "You think I should kiss her?". Nimue threw her head back, smiling, "Do it, Mab." and Mab did.

Perhaps he was still going to be sick.

Merlin left his party early. It hardly felt like his party anymore. Mab threw him a most gleeful smile. She should get awards for her performance. He watched Arthur and his friends from a distance. Arthur and a girl with sloppy braids who he seemed intent on impressing. Best leave them here. While they were happy. He left the box of condoms behind for those in more celebrational spirits than him. He hadn't found Viviane. As he walked home he daydreamed, nightdreamed, about what it would be like to hold a baby, his baby. A small wet wriggly newborn. Perhaps he could call it Carb, or some other fish.

More earnestly he thought, if a boy Jack, if a girl Jack. It was very unlikely he was going to have a say in the child's name.

To hold a baby in his arms and spin it around careful as can be.

/

Mab handed him a mug in the morning containing his regular coffee. The word DAD was imprinted on the mug. She wanted him to know without a doubt that she knew. She couldn't and wouldn't wipe a teasing smile off her face.

"Very funny."

"Well if you want to be a humungous idiot you need to suffer the consequences.

Oh, and Nimue stayed over. So you know and don't freak out when you see her." She playfully tapped the kitchen counter, determined to grate his nerves. She looked far too pleased.

"You never allowed her to stay over before."

She pointedly stated, "That was when she was with you. I trust me more than I trust you." She was leaning against the counter, drinking her first coffee, she sighed. "It's good to be queen." She was looking forward to what lay in store for her today.

He turned accusingly. "You didn't like Nimue. You called her names."

"I didn't like her for you." She drawled as if he was being silly.

"Try to and treat her well." he grumbled.

His mother wore that dark gaze he knew too well. "All things change, Merlin. You shouldn't blame me." Mab winked and left, leaving him to his misery and coffee.

/

Camelot was a success, if not a lucrative one. Meeting up with Viviane was no success. For weeks she did not answer his calls. She had disappeared. Her silence was like poison to him. If his mother was behind this, he feared she would stay away forever.

/

"Wake up, Merlin." His mother. "She used you. That is all it was."

Merlin groaned, pulled the pillow over his head. "Leave me alone. Let me make my own life." Mistakes… I am only human. Mostly human and partly an experiment of 'magic' crafted by his mother.

Gods, that voice in the distant kitchen, that was not Nimue again, it was, he knew.

"Get up. Get a grip. Stop fucking my sister and be happy."

Yeah, that is what got him into this state. He stopped seeing her. He needed her. And she? She was being her composed mystical self. If she was sad she wouldn't tell him. She would go on as nature led her, have the child, take a shine to motherhood, or not. Report everything to his mother every month of the year. He would never have to see her again, only hear her voice trickle through the wall like a dream.

He returned to Excalibar at least once a week to remember and forget, about school, and to get away from home. It was well worth the extra time to get there. He liked it there. It was his comfort. He hadn't met a single interesting person there since whatever-it-was happened. This evening promised to be no better. The fog machine was blowing a thick smoke around, mood lights were lit, there were too few people here to create the party atmosphere the bar was going for this night. It felt good to him, this quiet dark and the sense of something, not quite here yet.

He watched the lights in the flood, a dim red-orange flaring up every few seconds, he knew not for how long. Come to think of it, the smoke smelled quite faul. It was too early and the mood of the bar would change again when more people were here, for now, he enjoyed this. He did not watched the people, there was no other like her.

He saw her, his eyes followed her through the smoke, on to the battlefield, where she wore bright blue.

She was not drinking, not even a glass of water in her hand.

He imagined their child aiding him on his quest to have courage, to approach her, to see her and keep him cloaked from her sight. Just let me see her. He heard the call of his child in her.

She sensed him too.

He should retreat, retreat before she turned and he was paralyzed by her. The moment, that moment, she would see him slain.

She was flanked by some barbarian to his eyes. An adult, not a student, someone with his life figured out. Someone drunk and willing by the look of it, though she did not look or act as though she was interested. She easily tore herself away from a dispassionate conversation.

As she slowly approached towards him, a great glow as a brazier fired up behind her. It burned the mist. Never had time moved more slowly to him.

She was not wearing the boots, she had on similar make-up as when they first met here…

"Why are you here?" he asked her.

She wanted to whisper 'Go home Merlin'.

Viviane had cried and grown apathic. She had gone to this bar, where …

"I hoped to find you. I am not certain why I am here. I think I am either supposed to be here or I want to be here. I kept seeing you, walking by by the lake, when you weren't there. I thought I might as well go out and imagine seeing you here."

"I am tired of being enemies." He said.

"I was not aware that we were being enemies.

I enjoy having you in my life. You are always most welcome."

She had especially enjoyed him in her bed, but that could not go on. She would feel as if she was keeping him prisoner, for years and years.

"I didn't know if you would be here. It is far away from your home…"

"You couldn't text?" She could not get herself to text him or visit him at his mother's house. This had been her only way to reach him. She did not know how to explain this to him.

"I regret this is how we must end."

"It does not end, Viviane." For a moment he thought she would leave at that and walk away with the barbarian for the night, kill Merlin clean in that act. It would be a form of mercy. A soft, humane solution to being rid of him. He could see her be that practical about his execution. But the barbarian had been clearly dismissed. "Don't let it end, if you don't want to."

She thought of how she hadn't expected herself to love having him in her flat as much as she did. She thought of how she had wanted him to stay there for more than a couple of nights and of how she had told herself 'you can't keep a human being as a pet no matter how nice he looks relaxed and sprawled out asleep on your couch.'

"Do you want it to end?" She shook her head.

"Then don't let it."

"Viviane," he said, taking her gently by the arm. If one moment they were enemies, they would become strangers next. He would not let that happen.

"I really, undrunkenly, do, love you."

She did not understand. There was nothing she could do to help. What did he wish her to do? Her expression settled back on her 'You are troubled again.' look.

"I am not troubled. I know one thing that is certain in all my life. And this is it. You."

She startled by this phrase. A cliché so silly.

"What do you want me to do? I will work from home, do household chores, let me do the disches with you and walks to the lake, just share some time with me, please, I do not have to live with you. Once an week I'll come over and I'll clean for you."

A peaceful look lay over her, it was the her he knew so well.

She raised a hand, touched his face. As if to check that he was of human flesh, to check if he was her ally in this war. He was so beautiful. This boy, too pure of heart for his own good. "You should not settle for my polluted life."

"I've always known you are a mess. I know you try hard not to show it, but it is obvious. I am a mess too."

He was always going back and forth between things and often getting nowhere with anything. That was what she was like, he was the same. As least the intentions were there, the ambitions and naïve wishes.

"You should love someone of your own age and spirit."

"Nimue?" He laughed, could not help it. "She is dating my mom.

"Look, I am 24, I am not a child. I know I can do this."

"If you want …

buy me a drink and I'll advise on how to proceed."

Matters of the heart are a tricky and volatile business. Merlin did not wish to leave room for miscommunication. He would not have Viviane's sparse usage of words and evasive nature work against her. Or his own for that matter.

It had been no mistake, she thought, when she told him that night how much she cared for him. If those words had sealed her fate now, she would not regret it.

"Do you think it meant something that I chose you to be the father?"

"It means something that you would rather do this with me than without me."

"'This' being the child?"

"Yes, that is how you feel, isn't it?"

"I avoid thinking about what I feel as much as I can. I have never liked thinking about my feelings." She turned away for a moment, turned again, gave him a demure kiss. "I do want you with me in this moment and that might mean something."

He felt swept away already.

"I want to run away from home. Again."

"You should.

Would you like my help?"

"I would like nothing more."

"It will look suspicious if you go with me now."

"I don't mind."

"I decide on the child, the name, how it is raised, everything is in my hands."

"It is your child. Just don't give it up for adoption just yet."

"It has to be born first, Merlin." She studied his face. "You can stay until I know I can do this."

"Take care of a child? Agreed."

"I am not good at being a proper girlfriend."

"We don't have to attach a label to it, Vivi, unless you want to."

He kept holding her pale, glitter-glistening hand.

/

Look at that, I wrote a fluff-ish romance.

Pining Merlin is best Merlin?

How tempted was I to put "Viviane in the vicinity of her vehicle"? Very.


End file.
